#it's so hard to draw him younger and still recognizable since his main thing in my art is just very sharp features

[crumbleclub]

baby mike, not long after the Bite

different/no background versions + pencil original under the cut

[marvelousmatt]

Matt Berry on Why Making What We Do in the ShadowsWas ‘Terrifying’

By Elisabeth Donnelly

Since the debut of the definitive mockumentary on the secret life of centuries-old vampires, the 2014 horror-comedy What We Do in the Shadows, New Zealand comedy treasures Taika Waititiand Jemaine Clement have shown admirable commitment to expanding their bone-dry world of silly vampire jokes into a mini empire. Coming on the heels of the first spinoff, last year’s New Zealand television show Wellington Paranormal, and the persistent rumors of a sequel called We’re Wolves, their TV adaptation of What We Do in the Shadowspremieres on FX March 27.

With the same creative team behind the movie (many of the episodes are directed or written by Waititi and Clement, and some are directed by former Shadows familiar Jackie Van Beek), the show sets up a similar world with a different cast of vampires, preening and arguing for the presumably exhausted documentary team filming their hijinks. This time the vamps are living in an elegantly crumbling Staten Island manse, and their coven includes foppish dandy Lazlo and the tempting Nadja, who are in a long-term open relationship; Nandor the Relentless and his officious human familiar Guillermo; and the inspired creation of an “energy” vampire, khaki-clad day-walker Colin Robinson. While the main cast is a murderer’s row of comic actors who mostly cut their teeth on English television — plus the ascendant Beanie Feldstein, of Lady Bird and Booksmart — the most recognizable face for a particular strain of U.K.-besotted comedy nerd is that of Matt Berry, who plays Lazlo.

For the past decade and a half, Berry has been stealing scenes in shows like Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace and The IT Crowd, appearing in his own sketch show called Snuff Box, and writing and acting in his creation about a middle-aged actor, Toast of London, which netted him a BAFTA for best male comedy actor in 2015. If anything can be considered a comic trademark, it’s Berry’s voice — plummy and unforgettable, a knighted foghorn that’s fallen on hard times and is trying to get you in the sack; much of his hilarity stems from the mismatch between his vocal elegance and his actual persona. Naturally, he’s found success as a voice-over artist, most recently appearing in Netflix’s Disenchantment, and he’s also a talented musician, making legitimately good psychedelic rock (not to mention all of the music for Snuff Box and Toast of London).

Vulture recently spoke to Berry — who’s deep in the process of working on Channel 4/IFC’s Victorian detective-comedy series Year of the Rabbit — to find out how What We Do in the Shadows tapped into his deepest fears, and how Netflix has changed the trajectory of the once-cult comedian.

How did you get involved in Shadows?

I did a film with Jemaine [Clement] two or three years ago [An Evening With Beverly Luff Linn], and when we were working on that he said, “I’m thinking of doing a vampire series based on the vampire film I did. Do you want to be in it?” That’s literally it. It was as quick and simple as that, and we made the pilot in Los Angeles and filmed the rest in Toronto [as a stand-in for Staten Island].

What kind of freedom did you have to create your character?

I started from the beginning and tried not to pay any attention to the film. I treated this as a completely new job with a new set of characters in a new scenario. It was exciting for all of us that it was different.

How did you and the other actors keep a straight face? Did you end up doing a lot of takes?

There’s a lot of takes. We shot all the time, it was quite an intense shoot, so that helped for the lack of breaking. You just didn’t know your ass from your elbow. You already have jet lag and it’s four in the morning.

So you were shooting vampire hours, in this case?

We started scenes at four in the morning, or even later than that — or earlier than that — which was something to get used to, but you get on with it. The hours are a lot different in the U.K. There, you shoot from seven in the morning until seven at night and then everyone goes home.

What’s it like to do the wirework that makes you fly as a vampire?

Wirework is terrifying. It’s terrifying because I’m afraid of heights, and you have to look like you’re not, when you’re a vampire. There’s no reason why a vampire would be afraid of heights, much like a bird wouldn’t be afraid of heights. So that’s the veil of acting, because one minute you’re standing on the floor and then, within two or three seconds, you’re 50 feet in the air.  In one case, we were next to a building, so you can really feel how high up you are, and then you have to do your lines and look as if everything is completely normal. That was hard for me.

How did Lazlo’s costumes help with the role?

Well, they were kind of heavy. But very useful when it’s outside and it’s cold. Big capes and cloaks. They really come into their own when it’s snowing and minus-four degrees.

What was it like developing a comedic rhythm with the other vampire cast members?

I hadn’t worked with Kayvan [Novak] before, that’s the weird thing. We’d been in comedy in the U.K. but our paths had never crossed. At last they did, and it was a real joy, because it took going to the other side of the world to work with him. It’s an odd thing, what causes you to work with people. It’s the same thing with Natasia [Demetriou] — she’s fantastic in what she does. But they’re two people I never worked with in the U.K.

What’s it like having such a distinctive voice?

I don’t hear it the same way as you do. It’s something that I’ve always had, and I would exaggerate it with friends when I was at college. It kind of went from there, and it’s basically taking the piss out of actors that I would’ve worked with or seen when I was much younger, especially stage actors who did TV work and over-projected. That’s where it came from, and now it’s turned out to be hilarious.

When did you know that you could make people laugh?

I don’t know. You do what makes you laugh. I draw from the most pompous people, who are the people that make me laugh the most. My father’s not pompous, but he says ridiculous things, and I base things on him and somebody who has no sense of humor whatsoever. They’re the people that have made me laugh. If somebody has no sense of humor, I think that’s a great place to start for British comedy, in terms of your character.

Tell me more about winning the BAFTA. The photos of you with the award are really joyful.

People always say this, but it’s true for me when I say that I absolutely did not expect to win. [Toast of London] had been described by most critics as “cult,” and as we all know, no one votes for the cult option, let alone the performer from the cult option. When my name was read out, I was in complete shock. I had prepared nothing and therefore walked onto a stage in front of a full theater — not to mention a live BBC broadcast — with nothing to say. I immediately went into some kind of automatic mode and gathered the necessary reserve power to thank most of the people I needed to. My only interest was to thank my family, which I did, so job done. It was an honor and I’m still incredibly thankful and feel incredibly lucky.

What’s your favorite vampire?

That would easily be Christopher Lee, with Nosferatu running a close second. I’ve always been a huge Hammer Horror fan, so Lee’s portrayal would’ve been the first and most potent I saw. I missed out completely on the recent teen-vampire genre, as I was probably either looking for my keys, working, or in the pub.

Now that shows like The IT Crowd and Toast are on Netflix, do you feel like less of a secret?

The only difference is that someone from somewhere that you never expected has seen you and wants to know if you’d like to be involved with something else. When Toast got on Netflix, I noticed a difference. It was something I thought that only myself and a few people would find funny, and suddenly it’s on a very large platform. Now it kind of belongs to everyone. The shows I do, you can see them everywhere now.

What are you working on next?

A show called Year of the Rabbit, which is a Victorian detectives thing that I’ve co-written for Channel 4. I did that a week after finishing Shadows. Now I’m in the edits for it. I’ve gone from being 700 years old to 200 years old.

I have to get this Rabbit thing done. It’s like when you work on something that isn’t quite finished, you can’t think of anything else. All I can think about is Victorian London until it’s finished, and then when it’s done, I’ll go on holiday and not think about it.

[weekendwarriorblog]

The Weekend Warrior 9/11/20 – I AM WOMAN, BROKEN HEARTS GALLERY, RENT-A-PAL, UNPREGNANT AND MORE!

Thankfully, we’re getting a slower week this week after the past few weeks of absolute insanity with so many new releases. This week, we also get a nice string of movies about women that are mostly made by women directors, so hopefully these won’t get lost in the shuffle of theaters reopening.

To be perfectly honest, I went into Unjoo Moon’s I AM WOMAN (Quiver Distribution) – this week’s “Featured Flick” -- thinking it was a doc about ‘70s pop sensation Helen Reddy. Imagine my surprise to discover that it actually was a narrative film with Tilda Cobham-Hervey playing the Australian singer who moved to New York in 1966 after winning a contest, expecting a record deal but only winding up with disappointment.  Once there, she’d meet journalist Lilian Roxon (Danielle Macdonald, being able to use her real Australian accent for once) and Jeff Weld (Evan Peters), the man who would become her manager and then husband. Once the couple move to L.A. with Helen’s daughter Traci (from her previous marriage), things began to pick up at the same time as Reddy starts dealing with issues in her marriage and friendship with Roxon.

Listen, I get it. To some (or maybe all) younger people, including film critics, Helen Reddy represents the cheesier side of ‘70s music. I only know her music, since I was a young kid who listened to AM Top 40 radio for much of the ‘70s, but by the end of the decade, I had already switched to metal, punk and noisier rock. As you can tell from watching I Am Woman, Reddy is a particularly interesting music personality, particularly once you realize how hard she struggled to get into the business with a husband who only feigned to support her after dragging her to L.A. for “her career.”

There were many takeaways from watching Moon’s film, but one of the bigger ones is how amazing Cobham-Hervey is at portraying a woman that few of us may have actually seen perform even on television. I’m not sure if Cobham-Hervey did any of her own singing or is lip-syncing the whole time, but it doesn’t matter because she instills so much joy into the performances, especially the two times she sings the highly-inspirational title song live.

Although there isn’t a ton of major drama in Reddy’s life, most that does exist revolves around her relationship with Wald, who is depicted by Peters as an out-of-control coke-sniffing monster. Those in Hollywood may have dealt with Wald as a movie producer or during his stint as Sylvester Stallone’s manager, and only they will know how exaggerated this performance is. Far more interesting is Helen’s friendship with Macdonald’s Roxon which would inspire her to perform the song “You and Me Against the World.”  (Seriously, if you want a good cry, throw that song on after watching I Am Woman.)

Moon does a great job with the material, whether it’s recreating New York in the ‘60s – often using music to set the tone of the period -- or by framing Reddy’s story with Phyllis Schlaffly’s fight against the ERA, as depicted in FX’s mini-series Mrs. America.  Still, it never loses track of Reddy’s journey and her role as a mother to Traci and slightly less to Wald’s son, Jordan. The movie ends with a wonderful and tearful epilogue, and I will not lie that I was tearing up more than once while watching this movie.

I Am Woman may be relatively uncomplicated, but it’s still a compelling relaying of Reddy's amazing story bolstered by an incredible knock-em-dead performance by Tilda Cobham-Hervey. It’s also one of the most female-empowering film I’ve seen since the Ruth Bader Ginsburg movie On the Basis of Sex, starring Felicity Jones.

This week’s primary theatrical release is Natalie Krinsky’s THE BROKEN HEARTS GALLERY (Stage 6/Sony), starring Geraldine Viswanathan as Lucy, a young woman who works at a gallery who is still obsessed with her ex-coworker/boyfriend Max. On the night of her  disastrous break-up, Lucy meets-cute Nick (Dacre Montgomery from Stranger Things), who later inspires her to rid of her hoarding issues by creating the “Broken Hearts Gallery.” This is a place where people who have broken up can bring the remnants of said relationship by donating the mementos they’ve maintained from their partners as sentimental value.

I’m a big fan of Viswanathan from her appearance in Blockers and TBS’ “Miracle Workers” series, as she’s clearly very talented as a comic actress, but I couldn’t help but go into this with more than a little cynicism, because it does follow a very well-worn rom-com formula that can be traced right back to When Harry Met Sally. Yup, another one.  Much of this movie comes across like a bigger budget version of a movie that might play Tribeca Film Festival, and I wish I could say that was a compliment because I’ve seen a lot of good movies at Tribeca. But also just as many bad ones.

The problem is that The Broken Hearts Gallery isn’t very original, and its roots are especially obvious when it starts interspersing the recently-heartbroken giving testimonials. It’s also a little pretentious, because rather than the real New York City that would be recognizable to anyone who lives there, it’s more of a Millennial woke fantasy where everyone is a 20-something LGBTQ+ of color.  Even so, the main trio of Lucy, Nick and Nick’s business partner Marcos (Arturo Castro from Broad City) do keep things fun even when things are getting predictable.

To be honest, I’ll be perfectly happy to see Viswanathan become the next Meg Ryan, because part of the reason why I warmed up to the movie is because I thought she was quite great in it. (I hate to say it but she’ll definitely need a simple name to remember to make that happen. I’d like to suggest G-Vis… as in G-Vis, she’s awesome!) There’s no question she’s the best part of the movie, but it also thrives from some of the other women cast around her, including Molly Gordon, Phillipa Soo and (surprise, surprise!) Bernadette Peters. (At times, I was worried Lucy’s friends would get particularly annoying, but you’ll warm up to them as well.)

Krinsky’s movie is cute, and while it certainly gets a little overly sentimental at times, there are also moments that are quite heartfelt, so basically, it’s a tolerable addition to the rom-com genre. The fact that the characters are so likeable kept me from outright hating the movie, especially once it gets to its corny and somewhat predictable ending. Another thing I like about Broken Hearts Gallery is that at least it’s making an effort to have some sort of theatrical presence, including drive-in theaters.

Next up is Jon Stevenson’s RENT-A-PAL (IFC Midnight), a rather strange and very dark horror-comedy. It stars Brian Landis Folkins as David, a lonely 40-year-old living with his elderly mother suffering from dementia, who has been using the services of a dating service called Video Rendezvous. This is the ‘80s after all, so it involves getting VHS testimonials from various women. One day, David finds a tape labelled “Rent a Pal” and he decides to check it out. It turns out to be a video of a guy named Andy (Wil Wheaton aka Wesley Crusher from Star Trek: The Next Generation) who David begins having conversations with, but once David gets his chance to have a real relationship with a nice woman named Lisa (Amy Rutledge), he’s been dragged too far down the rabbit hole with Andy’s evil urgings.

This was recommended to me by my own personal rent-a-pal, Erick Weber of Awards Ace, who saw it weeks ago. I totally could understand why he would have liked it, because it’s pretty good in terms of coming up with an original idea using elements that at least us older guys can relate to (especially the living with your Mom part which I had to do a few years ago).  I wasn’t sure but I generally thought I knew where it was going, because David’s trajectory always seemed to be heading towards My Friend Dahmer or Maniac territory. What I liked about Folkins’ performance is that you generally feel for him right up until he gets to that point. I also really liked his innocent relationship with Lisa and was hoping things that wouldn’t get as dark as where they eventually end up. I also have to draw attention to Wheaton’s performance, because as one might expect if you only know him from the “Star Trek” show he did as a kid, this is a very different role for him similar to Seann Michael Scott in last year’s Bloodline.

Either way, Stevenson is a decent writer and director who really pushes the boundaries with where Andy takes his new friend, and it’s especially great for its synth-heavy soundtrack that reminds me of some of John Carpenter’s best scores, as we watch David’s inevitable descent into madness. You’ll frequently wonder where it’s going, but for me, it just got too dark, so I only really could enjoy it up to a point.

A little cheerier is UNPREGNANT (HBO Max), the new film from Rachel Lee Goldberg, who directed the recent Valley Girl remake, although this time she’s adapting a book written by Jenni Hendricks. It stars Haley Lu Richardson (from Split and Support the Girls) as 17-year-old Veronica who discovers that her dopey boyfriend Kevin has gotten her pregnant. Since women under 18 can’t get an abortion in Missouri without a parents’ consent, she goes on a road trip with her estranged childhood friend Bailey (Barbie Ferreira) to New Mexico to get the job done.

It’s more than  little weird seeing this movie come out in the same year as a much more serious version of the same movie in Elyza Hittman’s Never Rarely Sometime Always. That aside, Goldberg and her cast do their best to make this something more in the vein of last year’s Book Smart, although that’s also a fairly high watermark for any movie.

Because this is a road trip comedy, it tends to follow a fairly similar path as other movies where they meet a lot of strange characters along the way, as they try to get a ride after being busted cause Bailey stole her mother’s boyfriend’s car for the trip. For instance, they meet a friendly couple who tend to be pro-lifers who want to change Veronica’s mind, and the best side character is Giancarlo Esposito as a conspiracy theorist named Bob.

I guess my biggest problem with the movie is that it just isn’t that funny and feels fairly standard, but at least it has a decent ending to make up for the predictability of the rest of the movie.

Now streaming on Netflix is Maimouna Doucouré’s French coming-of-age film Mignonnes aka CUTIES, a film that premiered at Sundance and then stirred up quite a bit of controversy last month due to its marketing campaign, but is actually not the pervy male gaze movie which it may have been sold as. It’s about an 11-year-old Sengalese girl named Amy Diop (Fathia Youssouf) who wants to join the school’s “cool girl” dance group, known as the “Cuties,” even though it goes against her family’s Muslim beliefs.  Amy learns to dance so she can be part of the dance team and take part in a dance competition, but you know that this decision will led to trouble.s

Cuties got a lot of backlash from for the trailer and Netflix’s decision to release Doucouré’s movie, which is about a young girl discovering her sexuality, although it isn’t really something lurid or gross but actually a very strong coming-of-age film. I haven’t seen the trailer, but I can only imagine what scene it focused on that got people so riled up, since there are dance scenes that felt a little creepy to me. Other than that aspect of the film, Cuties is as innocent as a Judy Blume book. I mean, how else do you expect kids to learn about real life than movies like this? (Unfortunately, the movie is TV-MA so young teens won’t be able to watch it.)

The big problem with the Cuties is that they’re actually kind of bratty and bullies, almost like a younger “Mean Girls” girl gang, so it’s very hard to like any of them. They’re also trying to act way older than they really are, and you can only imagine what dark places that might led, as you worry about Amy getting dragged down with them, just because she wants to have friends and feel popular.

Despite my issues with Cuties, Maimouna Doucouré is a fantastic filmmaker, and this is a pretty amazing debut, especially notable for how she’s able to work with the young cast but also make a movie that looks amazing. That said, Cuties is a decent coming-of-age film, although I feel like I’ve seen better versions of this movie in films like Mustang and The Fits.

Also from France comes Justine Triet’s SYBIL (Music Box Films), starring Virgine Efira (who appeared in Triet’s earlier film, In Bed with Victoria) as the title character, a jaded psychotherapist who decides to return to her passion of writing, getting her inspiration from an actress patient named Margot (Adèle Exarchopoulos), who she becomes obsessed with. I don’t have a lot to say about this movie other than it wasn’t really for me. As far as French films go, a movie really has to stand out from the usual talkie drama filled with exposition, and though I thought the performances by the two women were great, I didn’t really care for the script or the pacing on this one. After playing at last year’s Cannes, Toronto and the New York Film Festival, Sybil will be available via Virtual Cinema through Film at Lincoln Center and the Laemmle in L.A. as well as other cities. You can watch the trailer and find out how to watch it through your local arthouse at the official site.

Now seems like as good a time as any to get into some docs…

 Liz Garbus and Lisa Cortés’ doc ALL-IN: THE FIGHT FOR DEMOCRACY (Amazon) follows Stacey Abrams through her run for Atlanta Governor in 2018, but it also deals with the laws that had been put in place to try to keep black voters from taking part in their right as Americans to be able to vote. I’m not sure what’s going on with me right now, but I generally just don’t have much interest in political docs right now, maybe because there’s so much politics on TV and in the news. I also have very little interest in Abrams or even having the racist history of the American South drilled into my head by another movie. I was born in 1965, my family didn’t even live in this country until 1960, and I’ve spent my life trying to treat everyone equally, so watching a movie like this and being preached to about how awful African-Americans have been treated in parts of the South for hundreds of years, I’m just not really sure what I’m supposed to do about it here in New York. I guess my biggest problem with All-In, which is a perfectly fine and well-made doc – as would be expected from Garbus – is that it lacks focus, and it seems to be all over the place in terms of what it’s trying to say… and I’m not even sure what it is trying to say, nor did I have the patience to find out. I thought Slay the Dragon handled the issues with gerrymandering far better, and I think I would have preferred a movie that ONLY focused on Abrams and her life and political career than trying to make a bigger statement. All-In will open at a few drive-ins (tonight!) and then will be on Amazon Prime on September 18.

I was similarly mixed on Jeff Orlwosky’s doc, THE SOCIAL DILEMMA, which debuted on Netflix this week. This one looks at the addiction people have for social media apps like Facebook and Twitter, and how the information of what people watch and click on is collected into a database that’s sold to the highest bidder. Basically, it’s your worst fears about social media come to life, but my issue with this one is that the filmmaker decided to hire actors to dramatize parts of the movie, showing one family dealing with social media and phone addiction, which seemed like an odd but probably necessary decision other than the fact that the topic is so nerdy and so over my head that maybe it was necessary to illustrate what’s being explained by programmers. Again, not a terrible doc, just not something I had very little interest in even if it is an important subject (and I’m probably spending too much on social media and essentially more of the problem than the solution).

I saw S. Leo Chiang and Yang Sun’s doc OUR TIME MACHINE at Tribeca last year, and I quite liked it. It follows influential Chinese artist Ma Liang (Maleonn) who collaborates with his Peking Opera director father Ma Ke, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s, on an elaborate and ambitious project called “Papa’s Time Machine” using life-sized mechanical puppets. I don’t have a ton to say about the movie but it’s a nice look into the Chinese culture and traditions and how the country and art itself has changed between two generations.

One doc I missed last week but will be available digitally this week is Michael Paszt’s Nail in the Coffin: The Fall and Rise of Vampiro about semi-retired professional wrestler Ian Hodgkinson aka Vampiro, who is a Lucha Libre legend.

There’s a lot of other stuff on Netflix this week, including THE BABYSITTER: KILLER QUEEN, the sequel to the Samara Weaving-starring horror-thriller, again co-written and directed by McG (Charlies Angels: Full Throttle). This one stars Bella Thorne, Leslie Bibb and Ken Marino, as it follows Judah Lewis’ Cole after surviving the satanic blood cult from the first movie.

I don’t know nearly as much about the British comedy series The Duchess, other than it stars comedian Katherine Ryan as a single mother juggling a bunch of things. Julie and the Phantoms is Netflix’s latest attempt to be the Disney channel with a movie about a young girl named Julie (Madison Reyes) who decides to start a band with a group of ghosts (hence the title). It’s even from Kenny Laguna, who is best known for the Disney Channel’s biggest hits High School Musical and The Descendants.

Other stuff to look out for this week include Kevin Del Principe’s thriller Up on the Glass (Gravitas Ventures), which is now available On Demand, digital and Blu-Ray; the Russian dogs doc Space Dogs (Icarus Films) – available via Alamo on Demand; Phil Wall’s doc The Standard  (Gravitas Ventures), and Andrei Bowden-Schwartz, Gina O’Brien’s tennis comedy All-In (on Amazon Prime and VOD/Digital) and Sam B. Jones’ Red White and Wasted (Dark Star Pictures).

Next week, more movies not in theaters!

By the way, if you read this week’s column and have bothered to read this far down, feel free to drop me some thoughts at Edward dot Douglas at Gmail dot Com or drop me a note or tweet on Twitter. I love hearing from readers … honest!

[idolizerp]

LOADING INFORMATION ON NITRO’S MAIN DANCE, LEAD VOCAL LEE TAEWOO...

IDOL DETAILS

STAGENAME: n/a CURRENT AGE: 26 DEBUT AGE: 19 TRAINEE SINCE AGE: 14 COMPANY: Koala.T SECONDARY SKILL: Choreography

IDOL PROFILE

NICKNAME(S): n/a INSPIRATION: He is inspired by the support, hard work and dedication of his family (Especially his mother) as well as Gens. Stylistically he takes inspiration from 4ce, POWer and other second generation groups. SPECIAL TALENTS:

Can speak multiple languages (Fluent Korean, conversational English & Japanese, beginner Mandarin)

Skilled freestyle dancer

Can perform a backflip from both a standing and seated position

NOTABLE FACTS:

He has two younger sisters

Worked a number of part time jobs whilst training, including stacking shelves at a local convenience store and washing dishes.

Has a quiet and collect demeanour. The silent guardian of the group, always looking out for the other members and ensuring that things run smoothly.

Plans to learn more languages in the future, beginning with Spanish.

Has contributed to Nitro choregraphy in the past as a collaborator on two songs

IDOL GOALS

SHORT-TERM GOALS:

Though their rise through the ranks has taken a little longer than some of their peers, Taewoo is happy with where they are now and their trajectory going forwards. His goal is simply to carry on moving down that path, perhaps by putting greater emphasis on their international appeal and fanbase. He would also like to become further involved with production, choreographing a release on his own rather than as a collaborator.

LONG-TERM GOALS:

It’s an unfortunate truth that all idols have a shelf life, and Taewoo is fully aware of that. Though his focus right now is on increasing Nitro’s popularity, he knows that he should begin laying down plans for the future if he is to continue being a pillar of support for those he cares about. What form that takes is still a mystery, and he intends to explore a couple of different options, but right now a production path is appealing.

IDOL IMAGE

Idol life has never come naturally to Taewoo. He doesn’t have the same charisma and towering personality shared by many of his peers, nor the looks to be considered a visual or the commanding presence of a leader. The years of training have helped to hone his natural talent as a performer, but that alone makes him no better or worse than any other idol. This is an industry as cut throat as any other, and on the surface not one that he’s cut out for. His nature has always been soft and gentle, defined by his willingness to do whatever is necessary and value others needs above his own. A doormat in nearly every sense of the word. He may not be innately superior, but he’s more willing than most to put the work in to surpass them. 

Despite his flaws, the company know that they can take advantage of that. Yes, he’s an exceptionally talented dancer with a recognizable voice, but his true strength lies in his versatility and malleability. Nitro has been an ever-morphing beast, beginning with intense edginess before softening their corners and becoming a quirkier entity, and currently walking a tightrope between the two. He is ready and willing to be whatever is needed, and do whatever needs to be done to push the group forwards. Need someone step in and embarrass themselves on a variety show? Taewoo is your guy. Learn a foreign language to appease overseas fans? Done. Rehearse until you’re literally on the verge of hospitalization? Who needs to sleep anyway? No matter what Koala T throws at them, he has learned to adapt on a whim.

Given the chance though, he takes a backseat role in promotions and other appearances. Years on the job have helped his personality to more fully bloom, but he’s still a reserved and nervous person who’s just as happy in the background as the foreground. Taking advantage of his quiet nature he was initially pushed as edgy and mysterious, a man of few words who exuded cool with no effort (ironically, the complete antithesis of his off-stage persona), but as the group has changed so has his role. There are some who argue about the change, decrying it as fake and a ploy to try and increase the group’s appeal, something that bothers him far more than any criticism of his talent. Though he’s still far and away the least outwardly charismatic member, his unique brand of unwavering positivity in the face of adversity and uncertainty is utilized as a selling point. Rather than sullen and brooding, which much to his dismay was often misinterpreted as arrogance, he’s seen as warm and reliable. A pillar of the group who values his members and fans above all else. He’s the reliable one whose compassion shines through his quietness, and despite not being the most popular amongst fans, will always go the extra mile.

Away from the spotlight though? He’s barely holding himself together. The hectic schedule is finally beginning to take its toll, and the weight of responsibility piling on his shoulders is slowly causing him to falter. For better or worse, through thick and thin, he’s always been an unbreakable rock. Anything will crack when put under enough pressure though, and the dark circles that appear below his eyes are the first fault lines to appear. Exhaustion is not an unfamiliar feeling, but where before he’s been able to power through, now he is on the cusp of burning out. Despite those around him voicing their concerns, he can’t address it though. If a single cog in the machine stops turning the whole thing stops working, and he’s little more than a cog. He can’t afford to stop. For the sake of the company, for the sake of his members and for the sake of his family he needs this to work, no matter the cost.

IDOL HISTORY

There was never anything extraordinary to be said about Lee Sooyoung and Lee Hyunseung. They were just and unremarkable couple in love with a tiny house on the outskirts of Seoul, a tinier dog and three equally unremarkable children. The eldest is Lee Taewoo, a quiet kid enamoured by the world with a perpetual smile, who would go on to be more than anyone could reasonably have expected. 

Being a line cook and a waitress by trade meant that money was never particularly forthcoming. Even before his birth purse strings were pulled tight, what little remained of their wages after bills being squirrelled away in savings accounts for the future, and with every passing birth the bet was pulled tighter. By the time of the third the cashflow is non-existent. They do their best to provide, and for the most part manage to struggle on, but food is often in shirt supply, clothes are second hand without fail and basic utilities are cut off at least twice a year.

Not that Taewoo cares, or even really notices. His parents are swans gliding gracefully across the water, and he’s too young or too naïve to see the legs scrambling beneath the ripples keeping them all afloat. To him, dinner by candlelight, freezing cold baths and clothes three sizes too large are all entirely normal, and even when his peers question it, he reasons that his family are just strange rather than struggling.

That has always been his way: to search for positivity in any person or situation, even when there’s none to be found. His optimism is unwavering, even in the face of tragedy or overwhelming adversity. “You have to laugh, or you’ll only cry” is the mantra that he lives by, and one that has dragged him from the darker corners of his mind on many an occasion. Though quiet, reserved and bordering on timid he was able to light up the room with a wide smile and an infectious laugh.

He was never an especially social animal, focussing instead on pushing himself in both and academic and athletic sense. Lacking the natural charm and charisma of many of his peers, it was his hope that doing so would win him friends, or at the very least acceptance. Rather than drawing them closer though it only seemed to push them away. He was, and still is, for all intents and purposes a doormat. He will let you step all over him, push him into doing anything and be whatever you need him to be just to be accepted. The reason was never really clear: perhaps his reclusiveness was mistaken for arrogance, or the rumours that swirled about his family’s financial situation. More likely though, it was because he had all the social skills of a baked potato, and no book was likely to change that.

And so, his quest for acceptance continues once more in vain, until one day, aged ten, he comes across a street performer. A dancer, to be precise. The way that the man moves is unlike anything he’s ever seen, the fluidity of motion completely hypnotic. Of course, he’s heard of idols, but this… this is something else entirely. He’s completely enraptured, unable to tear his eyes away until thunderous applause brings him back to reality. That was the moment that he knew: this was the answer he was looking for. A path lying in plain sight that had remained completely unexplored.

Even in the early days, the internet was a wonderful tool. Every video he could find was studied in microscopic detail, every book or article on theory and technique analysed multiple times. The depths of the family financial crisis are still a mystery, but he’s no idiot. He knows they can’t afford professional training, so to begin with he’s self-taught. It takes months, but his innate athleticism helps him to master the basics.

By this point the Park’s situation has only gotten worse. The tipping point had come when they’d made the questionable (see: terrible) decision to buy out the restaurant that employed them both with the aid of their savings as well as a complex and deadly cocktail of their savings, grants and multiple private loans. By putting themselves at the top of the chain, they reasoned, they would reap the most rewards. It was not a decision made on a whim, but rather one that Taewoo would later learn had been years in the making.

Business under the new owners ground to a halt, and by the time Taewoo is thirteen it is nearly none-existent. His parents, for all their good intentions were not business people and had no clue how to run a restaurant. His father hid away in the kitchen, his mother in the office as things spiralled further and further out of control. Back home it’s never mentioned, never discussed. Instead there’s only tension hanging thick in the air, withering glares and the quiet sound of crying in the dead of night as things spiral closer to rock bottom.

The failure of the business has repercussions. Where in the past they’d been forced to skip a meal here or there, now there were days when food was forgone entirely. There were more days without power than with and mortgage payments are consistently late. In hindsight, it was perhaps not the best moment to tell his parents his grand plans for the future.

Not a doctor like they’d hoped, nor a lawyer or anything of the sort. He wanted to perform. What form that took, he didn’t know yet, and didn’t care, but he had to at least try. Silence. You can hear their hearts crack as their faces sink. They’d always had high hopes that his dedication to his schooling would take him to higher places, and give him an opportunity to be better than them. They’d never been able to say no. After reassurances that he’ll continue his studies and laying out a clear plan b that ends with him in medical school, as well as paying for his own tutoring “Okay.” Is all they manage, the silence hanging heavy before they both leave the room hoping that it’s nothing more than a phase.

And so, he scrambles to gather funds from any direction he can. Favours from friends, odd jobs that need doing in the neighbourhood. He can barely afford a session a month, but surprisingly he’s pretty good. Being self-taught he’ picked up some bad habits but that foundation allows him to move at a much faster pace. Images of the man flash through his mind as he moves; a constant reminder of the level he wants to reach.

It isn’t long before he begins to emulate the stranger that he’s seen no more than a handful of times and begins street performing himself. Though it doesn’t have quite the same fluidity or precision of his memory of that performance it’s decent enough to warrant some attention and a faint smattering of applause. A small amount of money even finds its way onto his jacket laying nearby, which is pleasant and put towards more lessons, though ultimately superfluous. The rush he gets is reason enough to carry on.

Taewoo becomes a regular fixture of street corners around the city, and pops up at least once or twice a month in different locations, every performance better than the last. At this point in time he’s still a kid, with no plans for the future or any idea how to translate this into a career. He isn’t idol material, and that’s a fact that has been subtly drilled into him over time. “The industry is cut throat and you’re… too nice…. Too good” people say, cynicism glossed over with the illusion of good intentions. It’s something that he’s resigned himself too, an idea that he’s slowly grown to believe. Self confidence has never been a strength.

So, it comes as a surprise when he’s approached by a frantic man after finishing for the day, shrugging the jacket laid out on the floor over his shoulders and preparing himself for the dark, icy (in every conceivable way) confines of the home that feels more like a prison with every passing day. The words are a blur, and he’s completely blindsided. Representative, Koala T, scout, trainee, idol. He simply laughs nervously and walks away, assuming it’s a joke.

Except the man finds him again. This time even more frantic than before, he eventually beats Taewoo down and convinces him to come to an audition. It can’t be real, it’s just some crazy dude in the streets. He agrees, mostly just to make the other leave, with no intention of actually attending. Time passes as usual and he carries on attending school, attending dance classes and performing in public.

When the day finally comes, he wakes up and goes on as if it were any other. A notification on his phone reminds him of the audition but is dismissed without a second thought. He’s still convinced that it was nothing more than a cruel joke. But then, an hour before, it dawns on him. This is not a chance that will come around again. Yes, it could just be a man being senselessly cruel just to get a cheap laugh… but it could also be the golden ticket he’s been looking for.

It turns out that, unbelievably to him, the latter is true. After scrambling to get there and arriving at the last possible minute, he’s gobsmacked. Even more astonishingly he gets through the audition mostly unprepared without a hitch and gets the greenlight to proceed. His charisma is severely lacking, they say, but it can be worked on and his other skills will be enough to carry him. For now, at least. He leaves dumbfounded, mind moving at a thousand miles a minute and unable to process the news. He thinks he might collapse when the cool air hits his face as he exits and the bus buckles his knees on the journey home.

The wide-eyed joy that has been painted on his animated face all day fades when he gets home to find his mother sat at the table, tears in her eyes. Letters are scattered around her, red and black ink screaming from the paper. Final notice, they blare.

For the first time he finds out just how much trouble they’re in, his heart sinking like a lead balloon as she tries to hold herself together. The restaurant is lost, but the debts incurred and loan repayments remain. Their home is under threat, and utilities about to be cut off indefinitely. Where before they’d been swans, grace and elegance hiding chaos, they were now a sinking ship, the passengers screaming in panic as the descent quickens. She tries to feign happiness when she finds out the news about her son, but her worry is obvious.

And so, when he begins his training, he also begins working. Some nights he follows his mothers’ example and waits tables, some nights he follows his fathers and washes dishes. Some nights he stacks shelves and others he sweeps floors. The pay is never great, but it’s funnelled almost entirely back to his family. Though they’ve not been rescued from the sinking ship, the three have slowly managed to inflate a lifeboat just big enough for five.

Training begins well, but as it grows more complex and intense, he begins to fall in the ranks. Between maintaining his grades, working most every night and trying to keep pace with the schedule he never meets his full potential. Never the best but never the worst, he’s once more unremarkable.

Faces come and faces go, each one a little more disheartening than the last. He’s a good dancer and a decent singer, but that isn’t enough anymore. He needs an edge. Something to make him a more appealing prospect, something to make him useful. Languages is what he settles on, already knowing basic Japanese. Again self-taught, he begins with English. Koala T have artists with international appeal, so maybe this would be enough to tip the scales in his favour.

The second big blow comes a little later. His father falls ill, having a stroke at work that has a severe impact on his speech and movement. The news is devastating, and it takes him a few days to process. The temptation is there to quit, to work full time to support his family in their hour of need, but on his father’s insistence he stays. “You’ve come too far to stop now. You Can do this.”

That’s the first time that anyone has said that to him other than the scout, and it acts as a shot of adrenaline. He works harder in training and takes on extra hours at work, his grades taking a hit in the process. For this to work, he needs absolute dedication, but he can’t just leave them to fend for themselves.

Finally, his debut date is set, but just a month before he burns out. During training he collapses, vision fading to black as he crumples to the floor, the strain of exhaustion on his body overwhelming him. Pure terror overcomes him when he awakens, the fear that he’s blown his one shot running rampant. He has to fight a long and arduous battle to convince the company to allow him to join the group, but eventually he manages it. Perhaps they just took pity on him, sensing the desperation, but for once he couldn’t care less.

In the early days Nitro was an ever-morphing beast, going from edgy to quirky at the drop of a hat. He was always one of the quieter members, especially during their more serious concepts, and this innate introversion was misinterpreted by some as arrogance. Seeing this the company tried to rebrand him, using that naïve innocence and infallible positivity that he’s somehow managed to maintain as his main selling point. He’s still not the centre of attention and often has to fight of the arrogance label, but his new role fits like a glove.

In an attempt to be seen as more personable and genuine, he established a presence on YouTube. His demeanour on camera is still awkward and his lack of natural charisma and confidence translates on screen, but enough people seem to find it endearing enough to warrant its continued existence. Clips from the studio, Q&As as well as some of his early dancing and choreography are all featured. He has also been known to return to his roots and perform on the streets, footage of which is available here.

More recently his focus has turned more and more towards choreography. In his eyes that is the easiest path to take when Nitro comes to an end, and a solid foundation for the future. For now, he’s happy collaborating with others for the company, learning everything that there is to know before stepping out solo.

Which brings us to now. Nitro are finally making waves, and though they’re not the most popular group in the world, Taewoo is happy with where they are and their future trajectory. Everything that he has is poured into this group, every waking second used to help push them further. With their recent Global Popular Artist win under their belts there is a new fire inside of him to be the best he can possibly be.

Or at least that’s what he’ll tell people. In reality the blood, sweat and tears are slowly begin to take their toll once more. Black bags under his eyes and the same exhausted melancholy that plagued his mothers face that day now play on his own, betraying the next burnout rumbling in the distance. For now, though, he’ll cover it with makeup and smile for the masses. Because this has to work out. He has to make this work.